Foreign minister under fire after saying Turkey will vaccinate 'everyone that tourists can see'
Photo: AA
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Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu is under criticism over his statement about vaccinating people to ensure tourists' safety following.
At a joint press conference with his counterpart in Germany, Heiko Maas, in Berlin yesterday (May 6), Çavuşoğlu said, "We will vaccinate everyone that tourists can see."
His remarks sparked criticism on Twitter amid a slowed down inoculation campaign due to vaccine shortages.
Journalist Uğur Gürses wrote, "I advise all citizens whose turn for vaccination has not come yet to open a hot cake stand wherever they can see tourists."
Future Party Chair Ahmet Davutoğlu, who also served as PM and foreign minister, accused Çavuşoğlu of acting like the minister of a colony. "If only you didn't have the greed for money and you could vaccinate every teacher that students can see," he wrote.
Adnan Kavuştur, a member of the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), wrote, "Tourists can go to wherever they want in Turkey without being vaccinated, tested or quarantined but the real owners of this country will not be put together with them as if they are plague-stricken."
Also, some social media users posted photos of stray dogs with earrings showing they are vaccinated, ironically asking whether the government would do the same to citizens.
Değerli misafirlerimiz, aşıları tam olan türk vatandaşlarını küpelerinden tanıyıp gönül rahatlığıyla sevebilirsiniz. https://t.co/D3XV9Xt6zI pic.twitter.com/eL2Qc3CiKb
— Hayat Eve Sığmıyor (@hayatevesigmaz) May 6, 2021
Çavuşoğlu later defended his statement and accused critics of "nitpicking," saying that "he also meant domestic tourists."
"Why do only foreign tourists come to head when we say tourists? Don't we have domestic tourists?" he told the editor-in-chief of pro-government daily Hürriyet, Ahmet Hakan.
"In my statement, I stressed that we also take into account our people's health in vaccination," he added. (EMK/VK)